Done by Mandlakhe Ncube March 2011-03-29

LENNOX MINE SITE VISIT REPORT

To: Patrick
From: Mandlakhe Ncube
Date: 27 October 2011


Done by Mandlakhe Ncube March 2011-03-29
Contents
1. Brief description of the mine
2. General description of the process flow
2.1 Crushing and milling
2.2 Concentration
2.3 Amalgamation
2.4 Retorting
2.5 Smelting
2.6 Leaching
2.7 Elution
3. Recommendations
Done by Mandlakhe Ncube March 2011-03-29

1. Brief description of the mine
Lennox mine is a gold mine located in Nashava town which is about +0km from Nasvingo. The
mine is owned by the Zimbabwe recovery group.

2. General description of the process flow
Lennox mine's processing plant has about 5 main sections which are: crushing and milling,
concentration, amalgamation, leaching and elution and finally smelting. Each of these sections
will be briefly described hereunder.

2.1 Crushing and milling
Ore handling refers to the different processes that take place between removal of run-of-mine
(RON) ore from the mine up to its delivery to the milling plant. Run of mine ore (RON) is
transported from the mine to the plant, tipped onto a 180mm square grizzly where it is shaken
up and lumps destroyed for easy conveyance. The larger particles that are greater than
180mm are broken down to less than 180mm by means of a hammer. The ore then drops onto
a temporary storage bin where it is discharged on to a conveyer belt which takes it to a 10x2+'
primary jaw crusher. RON ore normally contains a small proportion of material which is
potentially harmful to the mill equipment and processes such as wood and large pieces of steel
broken off from mine machinery. All these must be removed as far as possible at an early
stage in treatment. One such way is by the use of an electromagnet. This electromagnet is
along the conveyer belt length. The ore then goes over a static grizzly before passing through
a 30x6' secondary jaw crusher. However, the grizzly is clogged and no longer serving its
desired purpose by design, thereby reducing the efficiency of the crushing circuit. The material
from here then passes over a 20mm vibrating screen, the undersize reports to the fines ore bin
and the oversize reports to a 2+" gyratory crusher. This is supposed to be a circulating load but
there is none at the moment as the gyratory crusher needs maintenance and new liners. The
fines ore bin is partitioned such that the coarser particles drop into the first partition and the
finer ones into the second partition. This bin has to be full always but it is not because of low
tonnage being processed at present. The plant is supposed to process 100 tonnes per day but
it is operating at about 15-20 capacity at the moment which wears out equipment and
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increases power consumption due to under utilisation of plant machinery. From the fines ore
bin, the ore then goes to a 6x5' ball mill where it is milled to a size suitable for vat leaching,
particles size analysis yet to be done. From the ball mill, the pulp (pulp density yet to be
determined) then goes for concentration.

2.2 Concentration
The pulp from the ball mill comes straight to a set of + rougher centrifugal concentrators to
capture most of the free gold. Any gold that is not captured by these is taken up by a set of 2
scavengers each being fed by 2 roughers. These concentrators rotate at 102-105rpm for
optimised free gold recovery and they have to be three quarters full of water and have the
right speed of rotation otherwise they will throw out the gold, especially fly gold which is very
light. These concentrators are cleaned up every + hours to avoid over loading them to avoid
possible gold losses. The concentrate from these is taken for amalgamation and the rest of the
slurry goes down a launder and is pumped to the tailings dam where it is reclaimed and
processed in vat leach tanks after draining off excess water.

2.3 Amalgamation
The concentrate from the roughers and scavengers is loaded into a 15-20 kg amalgam barrel
with a copper plate. !nto the amalgam barrel is added the concentrate, briquette of cyanide,
+.+ kgs of mercury and a level teaspoon of lime. The lime is for adjusting and maintaining an
alkaline pH so that the mercury does not get fouled or poisoned by a change in pH. The barrel
should be full before running for economic operation. This is rolled for + hours. From the
mercury put in, about a third of it amalgamates or captures the gold. The rest is recovered
when washing out the barrel. After + hours of continuous running, the barrel is tilted to empty
the contents. The amalgam and the excess mercury drops into a collecting bottle underneath
the collecting tray which is before the copper plate. A current of water coming from the bottom
of the tray causes the sands from the barrel to be washed up and out of the collecting bottle
underneath. The amalgam and the excess mercury drop into the bottom of the collecting
bottle due to high specific gravity compared to the light concentrate sands. As the sands are
washed out, they are rubbed onto the copper plate to capture any excess or near miss gold
that would not have combined with the mercury in the amalgam barrel. This is done by hand
but posses a danger in mercury and cyanide penetrating the skin through absorption. The
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rubbed stuff is then scrapped off and put in a bowl whose contents are eventually mixed with
the amalgam. The amalgam is taken out of the bottle, poured onto a piece of cloth and the
mercury squeezed out under water. The resultant amalgam bolus is then sent for retorting to
burn off the excess mercury and recover it.

2.4 Retorting
The amalgam bolus tends to harden with time as it would be exposed to air. This is put in a
retort to burn off the excess mercury and get 60-80 gold containing button which is
ultimately smelted. The retort is smeared with a layer of lime at the bottom to avoid the
sticking of the amalgam onto the base. The amalgam is then put inside, the lid is put and the
retort connected to a pipe for condensing the mercury vapour. At the discharge end of the
pipe is put a piece of wet cloth to capture any mercury that tries to escape from the collecting
dish at the end (Danger of mercury poisoning by vapour). The hardened but brittle resulting
button is digested in nitric acid before smelting.

2.5 Smelting
The acid digested button is then brought for smelting. Borax and the `gold button' are put into
graphite crucible that is paced in a pit furnace lined with coal inside with a blower at the
bottom. The coal is set ablaze and the blower run to support combustion causing the gold to
melt and separate from the associated impurities by mixing with borax which fluxes the
reaction.

2.6 Leaching
The slurry from the concentrators is left to dry in the tailings dam for a while and then
reclaimed later for leaching to recover the fine gold that could not be captured using the
aforementioned processes. The sands from the tailings dam are transported to the vat leach
tanks. The vat leach tanks are 15 tonnes and are basically pit like tanks constructed in the
ground. The bottoms are lined with standard 115mm bricks are stones which are almost the
same size. On top of this is a layer of heavy duty bags (cotton carrier bags) which are for
filtration and holding back the sand from clogging the solution outlet to the clarifier prior to the
adsorption cells. Onto these is a 10cm layer of river sand for sieving and clarifying the solution
as it seeps through. Onto this is a layer of nicely cut logs that act as a mark of where the false
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bottom starts so that it remains in tact always without getting disturbed during loading and
offloading of the sands to be leached.

The sands are loaded into these tanks, lime is sprinkled at the top and cyanide solution at a
strength of 0.1 is added to start leaching out the gold. The lime is for adjusting the pH and
maintaining it at 10.5 to 11. Percolation of the cyanide solution is a problem at times as too
many fines are treated using this method. The tank valve is closed and left to leach for + days
or more depending on the results of the colour test done to show how much gold is left. This
test is just qualitative and therefore is not a good indicator of the extent of reaction especially
when the gold content in the sands is now low. The solution drains to a clarifier consisting of a
small tank with a bottom that is constructed the same way as the vat leaching tanks save for
the logs that are not put as there are no sands loaded but a clear solution reporting. This
solution is then pumped to a carousel plant with 6 columns each loaded with 250 kgs of carbon
giving a total capacity of 1.5 tonnes. The solution enters the tank from the bottom going
upwards to maximise contact time and adsorption of gold onto carbon. From here the solution
goes to a barren solution pond for topping up the cyanide strength. When the carbon loading
is between +500ppm and 7500ppm it is supposed to be taken for elution.

2.7 Elution
The carbon from the adsorption circuit is brought to the elution plant for taking out the gold;
the reaction is basically the reverse of adsorption. The elution plant has 3 main compartments
namely: carbon tank, hot water tank and electrowinning unit. The carbon is loaded into a 250
kg elution vessel. Caustic soda and sodium cyanide are added in as well to do the elution
under almost the same conditions of leaching only that now the reaction is done at high
temperature to reverse it and speed up the process. The tank with the cyanide is connected to
the tank with boiling water. The hot water is pumped and enters from the bottom of the tank
containing carbon. The cyanide and the caustic soda make an alkaline cyanide solution which
gives rise to elution. The solution from the carbon tank then goes through an electrowinning
unit to recover the gold in solution by means of a wire wool connected to a cathode. The
solution circulates around all the 3 tanks. The process takes about +-7 days to complete
depending on the gold loading and the intermittent power cuts. After elution, the loaded wire
wool is digested with hydrochloric acid and finally nitric acid to remove any silver. The
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resultant slurry is then dried to a sludge that is fluxed with borax and then smelted the same
way as described above.

3. Observations and recommendations
Crushing and milling
Rollers and idlers need attention as well as the conveyer belts, both 600mm and
+50mm are torn need to be replaced.
Screening of fines to increase through put by using a functional grizzly.
Gyratory crusher maintenance, buying of liners.
!nstallation of a classifier (closed circuit) to the ball mill to increase circulating
load hence produce a closely sized end product and a high output per unit
volume compared with open circuit grinding with low residence time and over
grinding.
vibrating feeder for the ore receiving bunker before the primary crusher.
Replacement of liners and balls for the 6x5' ball mill.
Weightometer to measure tonnage processed for the day.
Water pump near the ball mill needs v-belts.
Pulp density measuring instrument to be bought.
Concentration
Taking of samples for tests and quantification of recovered gold at every stage.
Calculation of efficiencies across the concentrators
Amalgamation
Nercury handling needs monitoring as it gets absorbed by the skin and is
dangerous to anyone's health. Collect it under water always and no direct
handling.
Possible reduction of mercury quantity during amalgamation as only a third is
used. Project to be undertaken.
Retorting
!ncorporation of a condenser for reclamation of mercury.
Project on the effectiveness and efficiency of the scrapping of gold from the
copper plate.

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Smelting
Full fluxing of the sludge from the carbon elution circuit, include sodium
potassium nitrate.
Diesel fired furnace for smelting, coal has a lower heating efficiency.
Leaching and elution
Buy titration kit: 2 beakers, 2 burettes, potassium iodide indicator, and silver
nitrate.
Atomic absorption spectrometer, Fire assay furnace, pulveriser
Flow meters for: the carousel plant, barren solution pump
Neasurement of adsorption efficiency and carbon activity
Buy gold standard for carbon activity
Quantification of lime and thorough mixing of lime with sands prior to leaching-
constant pH and reduced solution ponding
Agglomeration of fines for heap leaching
Buy test tubes for sampling
Electrification of elution plant fence.
Addition of lead nitrate to reduce leaching time (90 of gold recovered in 18
hrs), cut down on time and increase production.
Reduction of cyanide levels from 0.1 to 0.035 to conserve reagents and cut
down on capital expenditure.

Other
Bury exposed cables.
Quantification of the processes parameters on the flow sheet.
Netallurgical accounting sheet.